Dyeing in the heat

I'm running out of wool.  So what have I been doing.  Been out back in the 90 degree heat dyeing wool.  I'm trying to get ready for the Kirby Midsummer Hook In on June 25th where I will be vending.  So I have some work to do!

Here is one of the pretty neutrals I dyed today: Hubbard Fig 119.  The 8-value packs are on the top and the dapple fat quarter is on the bottom.

Where to buy citric acid?

I tried grocery stores and pharmacies, endured many blank stares.  So I finally got on line and ordered a 5 pound jar of citric acid from Amazon.  We wonder why businesses like Amazon survive and local places don't.  Because the local businesses don't carry what we need half the time!

Loopgram: Citric Acid replaces Vinegar

I got tired of hauling huge jugs of vinegar and pouring (should I say slopping) vinegar into my jars when I was dyeing.  So I bought a 5 lb. jar of citric acid crystals and have been experimenting with amounts.  The acid dye process works when you infuse the dye molecule into the wool fiber.  This is a chemical process that is done with a mild acid like vinegar or citric acid, which creates a special chemical bond between the fiber and the dye color molecules.

Citric Acid is a bitter acid derived from citric fruits and it is used in everything from cosmetics to flavorings for food.

Citric acid is SO EASY to use I recommend switching immediately.  It is more cost effective and has no mess at all. And I found that the dye water cleared much better than it does with vinegar.

1 tsp. Citric Acid per 1/4 yard of wool

If you are trying to dye really dark wool (as in create a really dark value so there is a good amount of dye you are trying to infuse into the wool fibers), double this amount

ATHA Dye Book

I just received the ATHA Dye Book.  It is really neat, and a great concept!

For those of you who haven't seen it or heard about it, this is a project that the ATHA Biennial committee put together this year.  Different teachers supplied original dye recipes that they used in their rugs, a photo of their rugs, an inch sample of the dyed wool, and instructions for dyeing the wool.  These were all put together in a blue binder and are being offered for sale to help support the upcoming Biennial.   They only printed about 400 copies.  The last time I heard, there are about 140 left for sale.  There will not be a second printing.

If you want to purchase one, the book costs $38 pluse $5 shipping and handling in the U.S.  For Canadian shipping costs, you need to contact Gail Dufresne at gailduf@aol.com. 

The check should be made payable to "2011 Biennial, The Woolrights", and mailed to Gail Dufresne, 247 Goat Hill Road, Lambertville, NJ 08530.

All in the Family: Progress Report 1

I have been going to town on All in the Family.  I have about 10th of it completed at this point.  I have been dyeing a few colors that I need to work down the first two family rows (red-left column; red-orange-right column).  I am hooking this in a 9 which is the widest I have ever hooked before.

I thought that hooking linear rows was going to bore me to death because I have always found it tough to hook geometrics, the same pattern over and over.  But this hasn't turned out to be the case.  Hooking this mat has been wonderful so far.  I get excited each time I open a new pack of wool and hook in the new color.  I am now able to see a color progression which I surmised was there because of the way in which I have developed my dye process.  But now I can see it!

I have made two alterations to my design so far.  First, I couldn't figure out how to hook the pattern with curved lines.  I started out with curved lines and it just became a mess very fast.  So I went to straight rows, and I think it achieves what I want in a very powerful way.

Second, I quickly saw that I needed some kind of menu for the rug, something that told the story about what was happening with the color progression.  So I decided to hook a color wheel around the border.  The color in the top border shows the dye used to create all the colors in that column.  The color in the side border shows the color that was used to create all the colors in that row.  In other words, I am hooking a color chart.  If you take the color at the top of the column and mix it with the color in the side of the row, you get the color at that intersection.

Today as I hook it is cold and rainy.  I have a fire in the fireplace.  Wade is grading papers.  Alexander is playing.  And I have three pots of wool dyeing in the garage.  Couldn't be better!

More colors

Some of you have commented that you like the pictures of the dyed wool I have been taking. Thanks because it is all I have right now. I can't get this intensive dyeing done and hook at the same time. So the next few weeks are going to continue to be mainly dye posts. I promise to get back to other items soon!

Here is Violet Twilight 132, and Red Oak 144.

Dyeing up a storm

More woolens from my dye pot. Meet Crab Apple, 135; Will 'O Wisp 158; Rosewood, 138; Russet Red, 143 (Photo: top to bottom).

My new dye kitchen

With all this dyeing, I am tired of having pots of wool simmering on my stove top and my crock pot on my counter top. My kitchen feels like a mess all the time, and trying to get dinner put together around all the canners has become more than inconvenient.

My solution? I don't have a big home, so there is no room for an extra kitchen. Since I live in the center of Houston in a townhouse, there is no place to build a suitable space. So yesterday I took a corner in my garage, bought two electric hot places, and set up my dye shop. It isn't elegant, but it works. I was out there this morning and Wade dropped by to take a picture.

It is hot here in Houston and my new AC is being installed, so it felt good to be in the cool garage with the hot pots. I also love the fact that none of the dyes steam and fumes are in my home anymore. And the best thing? My kitchen is free to be a kitchen again! And the AC is soon going to be turned on.

Black and black

It really is true that not all blacks are the same. Artists who paint usually don't buy black tubes of paint because the black in the tube was created by mixing a bunch of colors together, colors that the artist may not have on her palette already. So artists create their own black by mixing their own colors on their palette together until a beautiful black emerges.

Rug hookers face a real dilemma when it comes to black. Last year when I was hooking the black background around Saint Nicholas, it looked awful. It was the wrong black. I resolved the problem by taking the black wool and overdyeing it with the dyes I had used on the wool for the rest of the santa. It worked! When I hooked it in, it was perfect.

Our eyes are that keen. The color of black matters. So now all my black wool is hand processed with the same dyes I use in creating my palette wools. The picture shows it all. The bottom is the black wool I started with. The top is the rich antique black that came out of my dye pot!

Created a new neutral

This weekend, I mixed my 9=BLUE and 3=ORANGE and got another wonderful neutral which I'm calling 'Milk Weed'. The bottom wool strip pictured is the result of my dapple dye procedure.

Rug retrospective 2009: Dyeing

The biggest thing that has impacted my rug hooking this year is the creation of a full palette of colors and the development of the Palette Dyeing technique. The idea is to have a full range of colors that are all related to each other like the paints on an artist's palette. Beginning with the creation of three "primary" colors (red, yellow, blue: left photo), I blended these formulas to create the secondary (orange, green, purple: middle photo) and tertiary colors (red-orange, orange-yellow, yellow-green, green-blue, blue-purple, purple-red: right photo) on the color wheel.

In the end, I had twelve colors in my color wheel, all dyed in eight graduations. I discovered that the first two graduations are really tints (color plus white) and the other six are graduations of the pure color. When I added black to the color, I ended up with shades (of red: left photo), and when I added gray to the color, I ended up with tones (of orange-yellow: middle photo). When I combined complimentary colors in my dye formulas, I ended with with fantastic neutrals (right photo).

My process is laid out on Rug Hooking Daily in a rug camp called Palette Dyeing. We have 78 campers, and I am hoping in the new year that more and more of the campers will post pictures of their palettes and hooked color wheels. When I spoke to my sister Tiffany, she said that she has created three primary colors that she loves and has dyed her secondary colors which have turned out just right for her. She wants to finish her tertiary colors over the rest of the break. I will probably return to the dye pot tomorrow, since I need to create one more neutral and then redye some of the colors I have already used up in my hooking.

Saint Nicholas 2009: Fourth and Fifth Eves

Finished except for the binding!

A note about the background black. I pulled some old black wool I had in my wool closet to use and it just didn't "go" with my palette. Can you believe that a black can be the wrong color black?! I didn't. But there it was staring at me all wrong.

So I took out my crock pot late this afternoon when I got home from work, measured in one tablespoon of dye per 6" by 15" strip of black wool. I had six pieces, so I used 3 tablespoons of my 10=BLUE-PURPLE and three tablespoons of my 12=PURPLE-RED which were two of the dyes I used in Santa's coat. I figured that I could 'marry' my icky black with my palette this way. And wow did it work!

By the way, I have to say it again: I LOVE my crock pot. I just put the dye in warm water with a squirt of synthrapol, added the black strips, put on the lid and turned it on high for 1 1/2 hours. At 30 minutes I added 1/2 cup of vinegar. Then I took Alexander across the street to "Christmas in the Village" where he petted reindeer and watched the children play carols on their violins and played in the slush pile the Villagers make to treat the children to snowballs (remember we're in Houston). When I got home I processed the wool in my washer and dryer, and hooked it in the background this evening.

So if you don't know what to ask Santa to bring you this Christmas, and if you don't have a crock pot for dyeing, ask for a 6 1/2 quart with a timer and porcelain insert. It will change your outlook on dyeing because it is so darn simple and about as mess free as you are going to get. And what fabulous results!

Creating neutrals

For the Palette Dyeing rug camp, I have been working on creating neutrals which aren't part of the color wheel, but are necessary for our rugs. Neutrals are made by mixing complementary colors on the color chart. The opposite colors tend to neutralize each other and you end up with some form of brown. So far I have mixed even amounts of my red and green palette dyes, and my yellow and purple. I ended up with a burgundy brown (red-green) and a creamy brown (yellow/purple). This week I will mix my final neutral with my orange and blue and I will post the results so you can see the different range of neutrals I got from this process.

I have decided to use a complimentary color scheme on my Monthly Reflections Rug, using my palette dyed wools: 11=PURPLE and 5=YELLOW plus the neutral created from their combination. I am going to alternate blocks, one purple, the next yellow, and so forth. The borders will be hooked with the neutral wool.

I am off to Kinko's to enlarge the patterns I have drawn for my first two blocks (September and October) for my Monthly Reflections Rug. Once I get it drawn on, I will get to work hooking them, so I can get caught up and be ready for November's theme when it comes in the church newsletter. It is not too late for others to join the five of us who are creating Monthly Reflections Rugs. Just come on over to Rug Hooking Daily and join our group and the challenge creating a rug month-by-month!

Dapple dyeing

This week during the evenings I have been playing with spot dyeing. I'm trying to create a spot dye process that is not haphazard. I am the type of person who hates not knowing how something is going to turn out. I have had terrible luck in the past with spot dyeing, ruining more wool than not. Either the mixture of color ends up with mud or colors I don't like and won't ever use in my rugs, or the pattern is splotched in a way that won't cut and hook into nice shadows in my florals or backgrounds. I also hate not being able to duplicate a spot dye I have made and actually like.

So I have been experimenting and making mistakes, and one mistake I made created some wool I ended up loving. So I have been working on using the mistake to further refine a technique. Once I get it down really well, I'll post the technique in case you want to give it a try. But the long and short of it is that I am only using one color dye (so I don't get mud) and I am using measured amounts of wool and dye (so I can reproduce the wool) and I am using a quart mason jar (so it is easy and the wool will always have the same spot dye look).

The spot dye is a little different in its look. It reminds me of marble or a dark dappled rump of a horse. Since "marbleized wool" is already a technique recognized by hookers as using three different colored wools, rolling them in a sausage, tying them, and processing in a stew pot, I am not going to use that term.

So "dappled dyeing" will be its name.

Loopgram: Dimensions of Color

I thought it would be fun to post here one of the lessons that is part of our Palette dyeing rug camp on Rug Hooking Daily.

There are three dimensions to color that we need to understand as rug hookers and dyers, especially if we are creating our own color palettes.

1. HUE = the color itself (red, yellow, blue, and everything in between them); 3 primary colors from which are mixed the 9 colors in between them
2. VALUE = the gradation of color (darkness or lightness of the hue)
3. INTENSITY = the purity or saturation of the color (dullness or brightness of the hue); different intensities are created by adding white, black, and/or gray the color

More about INTENSITY. There are three main ways to change the purity of a color, to make it less intense:

1. Tint: the color plus white; the white will dilute the color and lower the intensity while lightening the value.
2. Tone: the color plus gray or the complementary color; this will neutralize the color, graying it.
3. Shade: the color plus black; darkens the color, lessening the intensity while darkening the value.

This is a tint diagram which adds gray to the color:

For a rug's color to work, we need to be aware of more than HUE. We need to be aware of the VALUES and INTENSITIES of our HUES. Most rugs that we hook are hooked in medium values. Rug hookers are generally afraid to hook with light values, and use dark values too sparingly. This means that the rugs we are hooking end up looking flat. What pops rugs is contrast of value. And this is most easily achieved by using light and dark values along with the medium. The lower the intensity of the color (more muted), the more the color will recede in the rug, giving a sense of distance. So differing intensities of color will help to achieve contrast too.

To achieve the most successful color in rugs, it is wise to include different values and intensities. I try to remember to include in my rugs dark and light values, along with dull and bright intensities. This is the DAL DAB rule. In every rug, it is important to hook dark and light, dull and bright.

Cushing's Dye book

My Cushing's dye sample book arrived this week, and is it wonderful! I ordered it directly from W. Cushing's and Company. Every one of their dyes is done in 6 gradation samples, prepared by Mary Sue Layton. I see now that the book is essential for those of us who dye because with it we can see the colors and determine better what will happen when we mix them. I was told that there are only a limited number of these books left because it has not been determined if and when the dye swatches will be created again! If you are interested in obtaining one for yourself, the book is $75 and can be ordered HERE.

My secondary colors

I am amazed at the simplicity of the process and the beauty of the results. Here are my secondary colors created in the Palette Dyeing Rug Camp on Rug Hooking Daily. If you start with three gorgeous colors, the gorgeousness just continues when you mix them together. Introducing Pumpkin Galore, Simply Evergreen, and Sugar Plum.

Here are the three primary colors I started with: Million Dollar Red, Amaizing Yellow, and Alexander Blue.

Got my three primary colors

Phew! I finally got my red. I'm calling it the Million Dollar Red since I went through so many red formulas developing it that I think I dyed five yards of wool. But here they are. Now on to my secondary and tertiary formulas to complete the twelve main colors on my palette.

If you are interested in developing your own palette for your rugs, come and join us on the Rug Hooking Daily Rug Camp for Palette Dyeing. Enrollment is ongoing. And you pace yourself.

I've got the reds

Over in Palette Dyeing Internet Rug Camp, we are working on creating beautiful primary colors for our palettes: red, yellow and blue. So this last week, each day I created a different red, and think I finally achieved a fire red that I love to paint with. I posted several pictures of the reds with recipes in our internet classroom which anyone is free to join!

What the heck is Palette dyeing and why am I doing it?

My first forays into art were as a watercolorist in my early teens. I don't recall what got me interested in watercolors, but I remember my mom agreeing to allow me to take lessons from a woman who was a well-known artist in the Traverse City area. My mom had to drive me way the heck out into the country, maybe an hour's drive, for my lessons which were given in the artist's home.

The first thing she taught me was how to wet my paper and go in with the proper amount of paint on my brush. The second thing she taught me was that all artists have a palette and that palette consists of mainly three tubes of paint: a red, a blue, and a yellow. Now because I was a beginner, she let me pick out a green tube too. But that was it. All my colors came from mixing those tubes of paint together. I came to understand that all artists have their preferred tubes and because one artist uses one yellow and another artist uses another yellow, and so forth, artist's paintings take on their own uniqueness through their choice of the first three tubes of paint and how they mixed them to create other colors.

As I grew older, I became more and more interested in textiles and less and less interested in painting. I had sewn on a machine since I was ten. But what came to fascinate me in college was felting, spinning, and weaving, although knitting, needlepoint, and cross-stick never struck a cord even though I tried all of these. It wasn't until I found rug hooking, that I finally found the medium that would allow me to be totally free as an artist, to do my own thing with textiles just as if I were painting.

Well that last part of my sentence "just as if I were painting" really struck home with me this summer when I painted a couple of canvases with acrylics. Going to the store and selecting my three big tubes of paint and squirting them out on the palette board and getting in there and mixing mixing mixing - made me realize that I had allowed the rug hooking past to limit what I was doing with color in my rugs. I was either purchasing a bunch of unrelated but pretty dyed wool, or dyeing up my own and trying to make the dyes work together by developing a common recipe as my dyeing base, or trying to work recycled wool into my rug by overdyeing. And here was to hoping it would all look good in the end!

That was when I got talking to Sondra at the Kirby Hooking Circle. And I said to her, I think I need to develop a dye palette for my rugs, so that I have every color available at my fingertips were"just as if I painting."

So when Heidi and I started chatting about creating a virtual Rug Camp on Rug Hooking Daily, I jumped at the chance to start up a Palette Dyeing class. What are we doing over there at Rug Camp? We are each creating three colors (those three all-important tubes of paint): a red, a yellow, and a blue. These are going to be unique to each of us. Then we are going to work around the color wheel, using the formulas from our three colors we will systematically mix, and in the end we will end up with the twelve colors in the color wheel (each in 8-gradations) and have our own complete artist's palette for our rugs. From there we will then create tints (add white), tones (add gray), and shades (add black) of each one so that we can develop different intensities of color. WOW!

Think of all the possibilities
1. We can create a palette that we use as our palette for hooking our rugs.
2. We can create a new palette for new rug projects.
3. We can create partial palettes for different rug projects (cool color rug; warm color rug; etc).
4. We can overdye wools with our palettes.
5. We can spot dye wools with your palettes.
6. We can dip-dye wools with your palettes.
7. We can select any gradation of any color, tint, tone, or shade from our recipe samples and recreate it as exactly as can be done in hand-dyeing.
8. We never have to worry about whether our colors are right or not. Everything we dye will be related to each other and will go in our rugs.

The Rug Camp is ongoing. I'm putting up the lessons gradually. You can work at your own pace, start any time, stop any time, take a break any time. We are on Rug Hooking Daily. Come on over and check us out!